Vance Astrovik
After a chance meeting and a shared pretzel, Vance became fast friends with Ayla Ranzz, aka Lightning Lass of the Legion of Super-Heroes. That friendship very quickly has become something more and, although they've only just started, Ayla could safely and accurately be described as Vance's girlfriend. |history= Vance Astrovik grew up in New York City, bouncing from borough to borough as the family followed his father's assignments in the NYPD. From the outside, Vance's childhood seemed fairly idyllic. He got good grades in school, with a particular aptittude for science. He was handsome and well-liked by classmates, outgoing and friendly. While popular, he never used that popularity to pick on others, trying to follow the example of the superheroes whom he admired so much. Naturally athletic, he favored basketball in particular and, as he entered adolescence, adding wrestling to his repertoire. He served in school leadership and got accepted to NYU. Of course, there were truths he never let the rest of the world see. His father, the upstanding beat cop who became the outstanding detective, had both a drinking problem and a temper problem. When the two combined, the results were physical and abusive, for both Vance and his mother. Vance took the beatings as his due, internalizing his father's insults as if they were deserved, but he's never been able to forgive himself for being unable to protect his mother. As he got older, he tried standing up, but his father was bigger, stronger even than his athletic son, and Vance found that fighting back earned a worse beating for his mother as well as himself. So he sucked it up and he took it. He put a smile on his face to the rest of the world and he hid his bruises underneath his clothes or in the guise of a bad encounter with an asphalt playground. Then, one day, when he was sixteen, Vance was recognized with a plaque and a commendation from school for his outstanding leadership and example. Rather than being proud, Vance's father saw his son as getting "too big for his britches" and took to whipping him with a belt that night, spilling blood and driving Vance almost mad...until he snapped. The power flowed out of him and hurled his father into the wall. He'd felt hints of it before, objects flicking closer to his hands, the windows flying open when he wanted a breeze. But this was more, stronger, poweful and glowing, blue energy swirling around him as he pinned his father to the wall. Of course, his father hated mutants as much as he hated anyone else, and Vance heard the insults getting louder and nastier as he packed his things. He had to leave. He begged his mother to come with him, to follow, but she stayed behind. She claims now that the beatings have stoopped, that Vance's father has changed. Vance wouldn't know, he stopped talking to the man or making excuses for him. He only visits when the old man is at work. For the last two years of high school, he slept on friend's couches until he earned enough working part-time to get a small apartment for himself. NYU came with scholarships, thankfully, and he has begun a course of study in the dream of someday being an astronaut. And he's felt the power in his hands and mind and has begun to train it and master it and make it his own. Maybe he can be a superhero. He hopes he has what it takes to do that. He at least intends to try. }} Category:FC Category:Hero Category:Registered-Real-Name Category:Character